The artwork

WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK
2016
Micro-perforated printing on Polystirene, aluminium
200×100 cm
Courtesy of the artist

WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK is a micro-perforated printing on a translucent polystyrene panel of 200 x 100 cm maintained by aluminium flats. The printed image is a photograph of grass and dew in the morning light. In the direct continuity of An Average Idea Of The Sky, WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK is a calibration work. Several advertising photography and stock images were used in the creation of this work, offering a mathematically average picture, a Jungian advertising archetype. The blades of grass and reflections repeat themselves upside down; a careful look immediately revealing the photomontage. But the truth doesn’t matter any more; WHTSNXT: BENCHMARK is only a sham image whose purpose is to represent an ideal advertisement. The concept of purity – essentially commercial and unattainable – is the symptom of a humanity disconnected from Nature; a humanity which is evolving in a labyrinth of mirrors, only returning itself its own image through profitable artefacts. Pictorial advertising ideals are a form of sacred, religious ersatz that have to fill a void through a projection of desires. In a post-capitalist era, the internet pictures stocks strike in the link between image and representation of a subject; these captivating icons carry within them neo-liberalist concepts. Some coloured flacons are presented in a linear way under the panel. The linear layout shows a color gradient from light yellow to teal – the average spectrum of colors in the image. These samples are also stallions that refer to the backstage, the excesses of contemporary scientism and materialism.